You began playing bass with which group?
Professionally it was with Mario Castro Neves. Before that I was playing in jam sessions in people’s apartments. It was normal then for everyone to get together and just play. For nearly two years I played every day with Tenório Jr. at his place... every day, us and Waltel Blanco. Tenório of course later ‘disappeared’ in Argentina.

How old were you then?
Seventeen. I was playing violão [acoustic guitar], you know, that was the instrument then. Everyone played guitar before anything else.

What were your early influences on bass?
I guess one of the most important was Cecil McBee. In 1965 Cecil McBee came to Rio as part of the Paul Winter Group.
I met Cecil at one of those apartment parties and we became friends – he ended up staying in my home for a few weeks and really he was my first teacher on the bass. That group had some great players, Jeremy Steig, a fantastic flautist who later did a beautiful LP with Bill Evans, and Pat Rebillot on piano.

Did you ever get to play in those famous Bossa clubs in the Beco das Garrafas like ‘Bottles’ and the ‘Little Club’?
I used to hang out at the ‘Little Club’ and watch those crack players during the Sunday afternoon sessions, because I was underage and too young to get in at night. So on Sundays there was this party session from 5 in the afternoon till 10 at night and you paid so much to get in and you got the right to a free Cuba Libre! It was like a jam session, people would queue up to play. There were fewer pianists and bass players, you know Tenório Jr., would be playing regularly. But the drummers, there was always a queue of at least ten people waiting to sit in. But for me, Edison Machado was the one to watch. Not so much when he played in a jazz style but when he played samba – that was something else! He had an inimitable touch playing samba on the cymbals. Truly amazing.

Tell me how you started playing with Dom Salvador and those guys...
Well I was playing with Mario Castro Neves group and we were backing Leny Andrade in a show and it was there that Dom Salvador saw me playing and afterwards invited me to join his new trio.

This was The Salvador Trio?
That’s right. His previous trio, Rio 65, had just disbanded – Edison Machado had gone to New York with the Bossa Tres. Then he found Vitor Manga, who’d been studying jazz – he was really talented, too. He’s another one who died early. So we recorded that famous LP, ‘Don Salvador Trio’.

You recorded with Vitor Assis Brasil on his first LP for Forma in 1966. Did you prefer the jazzier side of MPB?
After the time I spent with Salvador I joined Vitor Assis Brasil’s group. That was really ‘jazz samba’, you know. More jazz influenced by samba than the other way around. You know Bossa Nova had a lot more to do with harmonies and of course that classic violão sound. Tamba Trio were more like this, Bossa Nova. Vitor [Assis Brasil] was really jazz with a samba attitude.

In 1967 you and Tita left Brasil – was that for political or musical reasons?
Oh, really for musical reasons.

How did you end up in Paris?
Well back in Rio I’d worked jamming with [pianist] Fernando Martins and [bassist] Nelsinho and we’d called ourselves O Trio Camara. Nothing serious though, more jam sessions. But then I got a call from Fernando saying that they were in Paris and I should come over. At the same time Tita had won a placing in one of the song festivals in Rio and Eddie Barclay of Barclay Records in France had seen her and invited her over to Europe, so it made sense that we both went. Also, up until that time the whole Bossa thing had been big so we were making good money, playing all the time. But then came a couple of years when the whole ‘Jovem Guarda’ thing happened, you know rock ’n’ roll, what we call ‘iê-iê-iê’ and suddenly the work began to dry up. We reformed Le Trio Camara there in France and recorded at the Vogue studios in Paris, the very one you see in the movie ‘Round Midnight’ with Ron Carter playing, you know. Anyway the guy that owned the studio was the producer, but he sold the Trio Camara recordings to Pierre Barouh and so it came out on his label Saravah. Then we did the album with Tita on Barclay.

Did you have much success in France?
Oh yes, the French loved us. In Europe they loved what we were doing. But then suddenly we were caught up in all those student riots in Paris and things were getting ugly and Tita was a bit homesick so we decided to return. We’d lots of shows and other opportunities to stay there, but it wasn’t a good time for us. Tita and I went back to Brasil and got married...

How much had the music scene changed in Brasil?
Well quite a lot really, the ‘iê-iê-iê’ thing was pretty much over but you still had the ‘pilantragem’ of Dom Salvador and Abolição, Wilson Simonal, those guys, and the beginning of tropicalia.

Salvador had moved further towards that kind of Ramsey Lewis pop soul influenced sound by this time hadn’t he?
That’s right the Abolição record was kind of like that ‘pilantragem’.

You’re primarily known as an acoustic bassist. Did you ever play electric bass?
Yes, when I returned to Brasil, I bought an electric bass and started paying with Marcos Valle’s group. I recorded the soundtrack to the TVGlobo telenovela ‘Pigmaleão 70’ with him. It was an interesting time because I had a group going for a while with Mamão from Azimuth playing rock but already a funky kind of thing like Azimuth did later. That whole thing came together – you know it was Marcos Valle who gave them the name Azimuth from one of his songs. We called ourselves The Youngsters and played on that novela soundtrack. I also played in a theatre piece by Maria Clara Machado called ‘Missa Brasil’ that was a kind of funky gospel rock thing, really excellent. I ended up selling my electric bass to Bebeto (Tamba Trio) – I think he still has it!

But you were still playing acoustically during that time?
Yes, I recorded those two LPs with Vitor Assis Brasil, Esperanto and Toca Jobim – we had a great line up for that – Edison Machado on drums, Helio Delmiro on guitar, and Dom Salvador on piano – just the best!

Did you graduate as an arranger as well as a bassist?
Well, arrangement was something I was always interested in and I studied on my own using Hollywood arranger Russell Garcia’s book. He was an interesting character who wrote for Charlie Chaplin and lots of movies without credits.

In the early 70s you started to train as a classical contrabassist.
Yes, I got a grant to study for one year and after that I was contracted to play for the ‘Orquestra Sinfonica Brasileira’. I played with them for 15 years, all over the world.

You play piano as well?
Well, I think I play a bit… Donato likes it!

You’ve played with many of the big names in MPB and jazz as well… Jobim, Gato Barbieri, Luiz Bonfa… Who else?
I played with Baden Powell, Marcos Valle, Paulo Moura. I also recorded with Miucha, João Donato and João Gilberto and Stan Getz.

You played with Elis Regina, too?
Yes, with Elis and Tom (Jobim) together.

In the 90s you spent quite some time in Boston…
Yes, from 93 to 95 we had a quartet with myself, Tita, Brasilian pianist Alfredo Cardim and Joe Hunt, who played with Stan Getz for years, on drums.

What are you doing today?
We’re recording a new record with Tita featuring our arrangements and with guests like Robertinho Silva and Donato.

What about the younger generation of musicians in Brasil?
There are some interesting things happening – the new guys are listening to all the old stuff now as well as their rock and hip hop etc., that can only be a good thing.

So what do you think about ‘Partiu do Alto’ being re-released?
Well you know it was an independent production at a time when that was a hard thing to do in Brasil, but I always said that that record was kind of timeless and that one day it would find its audience. I think that people outside of Brasil respond really well to this kind of music, you know. They have the right sensibility to understand it. Like I said it’s timeless, really…

e tita

What was your first involvement with Brasilian music?
I began singing with [forro star] Luiz Gonzaga when I was ten years old, singing in my town square in Minas Gerais – dressed in flip-flops and pyjamas!

What sort of style were you singing then?
Ah, well, I was imitating Angela Maria, who was a big star in the 50s, all that big emotion, dramatic singing, you know. ‘Samba-Canção’, they called it.

You grew up in Minas Gerais a long way from Rio where the music business was based. How did you get to Rio?
I went twice to Rio. Once when I was around fifteen, trying to get a career started somehow and then again when I was around nineteen, 1959 or 1960.

Had you developed your own style by then?
Even back in Minas I’d had the João Gilberto record ‘Chega de Saudade’ and been influenced by him. I’d got my own repertoire together, songs that I’d composed already, and then I went back to Rio and by that time, the Silvia Telles record ‘Amor de Gente Moça’ had come out and the Bossa Nova thing was really happening. I started to play in Rio and met Sivuca – he and I used to jam together and he would say ‘Oh, Tita, what’s that crazy harmony you just played there?’ [laughs]. Then he would try to write it down for me.

You recorded young, didn’t you? EPs and an album for Polydor at the beginning of the 60s…
Well the first thing was at Odeon in 1958/59. I knew Aloysio de Oliveira and I’d got together with Tito Madi, who was the big star then, and they took me into Odeon to record a 78. After that I did the two singles for Polydor, one of them with the Sidney Miller song, ‘Roupa de Dona’. Then, in 1964, I did the LP for Polydor with beautiful arrangements by Eumir Deodato, Lindolfo Gaya and Paulo Moura.

You’ve composed a lot of beautiful songs – some of them have been covered by the greats haven’t they?
That’s right. Emilio Santiago, Johnny Alf, Doris Monteiro, Maysa…

It’s interesting that you recorded a solo LP [with Le Trio Camara; 1967] consisting entirely of your own compositions, something then unknown for a female singer in Brasil.
It seems that the record companies in Brasil at the time were like the US companies in the 50s – pairing off singers with composers in which they had an ‘interest’ and female singers were just the interpreters of male songwriters.

Do you think that recording in Europe at that time allowed you more freedom to record your own songs?
I was the only female composer to reach classification in the FIC (International Song Festival) that I took part in. What I really liked about the Europeans was that they knew how to give a value to the music itself. When I started out people thought I was very odd. A woman sitting down and playing guitar and singing her own songs, that was very uncommon. You know one of the differences is that women have their fragile side and there were many people who said I was João Gilberto in a skirt!

When you went to France was it to record for Eddie Barclay?
Yes, that was because he had seen me in the classification of the FIC festival and invited me to go to France. Edson went as well and, as you know, we recorded and played together. The reaction to our music in France was very good, very positive. Then there was the student riot thing happening and we decided we didn’t want to be there anymore with all that ugliness.

The book ‘Chega de Saudade’ by Ruy Castro went some way to reinstating the reputations of various musicians and composers that had been passed over in the history of Brasilian music – Johnny Alf, for example, or Donato who only recently has come to receive due respect in his own country. Castro included you in this group, didn’t he?
Yes he did. I think it was something like this – ‘[Tita’s] guitar and her voice reflect the beauty and grace of the Bossa Nova, that important musical movement which has enchanted the world’.

What are you doing today?
We’ve just finished recording our next album for whatmusic.com which will be released later this year.

So what do you think about ‘Partiu do Alto’ being released worldwide after all this time?
I think it’s fantastic. Like ‘Novidade de Vida’, we did this record to show something of ourselves and we’re always happy when we can connect with people this way. And artists need an audience to express themselves. The great thing about music is that to anyone who hears it for the first time it’s always new.